Rules and Regulations

General

Pac Tom is a single-player game whose purpose is to run the
length of every street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pac Tom takes
several years to complete.

I do this in a series of trips. Each trip must start or end
(usually both) at "home", and can go anywhere on foot (including
off-road). I keep track of where I go using a wrist-worn GPS device.
The first time I'm on a road segment I must run it; after that it's
acceptable (but wimpy) to walk. I can stop to rest any time, if I am
a wimp. I mark off completed roads on
a map after the trip, marking non-roads
so that it's clear that there's nothing to do there, and occasionally
correcting the route if there's some problem with the GPS trail.

What counts as a road?

There's a lot to say about what counts as a road. My basic
philosophy is: If you can drive a car on it and I can legally and
safely run on it, then it counts. There are lots of corner cases
to consider, particularly in Pittsburgh.

Missing roads.

I use Google Earth as the official word
on what roads I must do. The maps are great, but I usually encounter
multiple errors per trip. The most common error is a road that's on
the map but not in reality: Sometimes it's clear that it was once
there and is now overgrown, sometimes it's actually a driveway,
sometimes there's no hint of it at all. (I think that map providers
actually deliberately introduce fake dead-end roads as watermarking
so they can detect if people copy their data.) Missing roads aren't
there so I don't require myself to run on them. If it's merely run
down or I can't quite tell, sometimes I go for it anyway, since
it can lead to adventure.

Roads not on the map.

Less commonly, I spot roads while
running that aren't on the map. When I see them I do them, because
for one thing I know that the map might later be updated to add them
(see "winning the game" below). However, I have to consider these
optional because I have no way to keep track of the roads unless
they're on the map.

No trespassing.

Sometimes "roads" turn out to be private
drives, or have "no trespassing" signs, or are gated with security
guards, razor wire and land mines. I consider these optional unless
there's clearly nobody around to stop me. I think that a lot of
the time, these are actually public roads that were just claimed by
someone as no trespassing private by making a hand-made sign.

Highways.

Highways are often excluded, because it's
usually visibly illegal to run on them, and often pretty unsafe. In
Pittsburgh, interstates 376, 579, and 279 are basically undoable,
except in special circumstances like road races or closures for
construction. (In do take advantage of situations like that, but
consider them optional.) Most state highways are doable (many have
sidewalks within the city limits) except for occasional parts with
no safe passage. In terms of length they don't account for much of
the total roadage in Pittsburgh, so I don't feel bad about leaving
them out. I mark unsafe areas with skulls on the map.

Bridges and tunnels.

Pittsburgh has lots of bridges
spanning its rivers and valleys, most of which have sidewalks or
bike lanes. I include those—the ones crossing the rivers are
not technically in any neighborhoods (see "winning the game" below)
but they're some of the most scenic spots in the city. Most tunnels
are not designed for anything but motor vehicles, and GPS does not
work in them, so those are excluded. (The Armstrong Tunnel
surprisingly does have pedestrian passage, which I have
enjoyed.)

Stairs.

Pittsburgh has the odd feature that many of its
official "roads" are actually staircases. I exclude these on the
grounds that they cannot accommodate cars. Running on stairs really
sucks, anyway. They're also among the most likely "roads" to be
missing, or impassable because they're broken or overgrown. That
said, stairs are sometimes useful shortcuts (especially in the South
Side Slopes) and I've actually done a good fraction of them as part
of a friend of mine's kindred project to hike all Pittsburgh's
stairs in group outings.

What does the length of every road mean?

If roads had start and finish lines and no intersections this
would be easy. But there are many complications. For dead ends with
a clear terminus (say, Jersey barrier) I aim to get within a car's
length of that thing. If there's a cul de sac with a center, I run
around that dot. If the road just kind of peters out, then I have to
make a guess. Sometimes there will be a long dead end that gradually
becomes someone's driveway out in the middle of the woods, and at
the end they're all there having a cookout like in the driveway and
a basketball game also spanning the driveway and obviously this road
goes nowhere except the cookout and they've never seen a runner here
before ever, and they're all quizzically looking at me, and in those
cases I'm like Hey what's up guys? and I turn around without getting
to the very end.

Running sidewalks, gutters, bike lanes, grassy embankments,
medians, sidewalks that are actually stairs, and all that stuff
count as running the attached road. I usually run on the sidewalk if
it's available. For divided highways, I only require myself to go on
one lane, but there aren't many of these in Pittsburgh and most of
them I've done both sides anyway, for variety.

The width of intersections themselves are optional; I only care
about the segments of road in between. For example, I might enter
a four-way intersection twice, like this:

and in doing so I haven't actually run the span of the intersection
itself in either direction. The reason is that it's a nightmare
to keep track of, because that distance is about the resolution of
my GPS device, so even if I cross the road and turn around, I might
not be able to tell from the GPS trail. I would also need much more
detailed maps, which would mean running with a lot of paper.
Sometimes there are complex systems of islands and mini-curves as
roads intersect. These are optional too but I often do them for
fun.

What counts as home?

My philosophy here is don't go out of my way to pick a convenient
start/end spot. Home is usually my house, my office, or a friend's
house if I'm staying there for some other reason. These have all
been located in roughly the same part of town (Shadyside / Squirrel
Hill). Because organized road races are a rare opportunity to run
some road segments (like highways) that are otherwise too dangerous
to do, I also allow road races to count. I don't have any control
over the start or end points of these, so that's consistent with the
philosophy.

Probably 90% of my runs both start and end at home. The reason
for the start or end option is that I sometimes find myself
injured or unexpectedly wiped out and need to walk home (and it
would be a particular indignity to not count the running done on
such painful trips). I used to occasionally do stuff like catch
a ride to the Waterfront shopping center and run back from there, or
go with my brother to his hockey game and start the run from the
park, but I don't do that much any more.

What counts as running?

I am pretty lax about what counts as running, at least compared
to what I'd
do racing
or training. Basically my philosophy is don't wimp out. Most of the
time I'm doing a leisurely 8m30s–9m30s pace, which for me
allows for the greatest distance and injury avoidance. If it's a big
uphill and I'm wiped out, it could be much slower, quite
sorry-looking I'm sure. If I've got pep or I'm feeling masochistic,
could be faster. I seem to have some internal notion about what
running is (versus walking) which is independent of speed and hard
to articulate, but you probably know what I mean. You could take the
definition used to prevent race walkers from being race runners:
It's running if both of my feet are off the ground at some point
during the stride.

Winning the game

After playing Pac Tom for some time I realized the road system
actually changes significantly at the year-by-year scale, and that
Google frequently makes updates to their map data. To reduce despair
(e.g. thinking that I was done with all of the roads in some distant
section of town but seeing a new tiny dead-end road that might not
even be real pop up there a year later) I need some account of time
in the rules. The rule is: If at any time I've run every road within
a neighborhood (these are officially defined by the city) according
to the map, then I can mark that neighborhood off for good and not
worry about new roads or map changes there. Until a neighborhood is
finished, I have to live dynamically. Once all neighborhoods are
done, I win.

Pac Tom Level I is the parts of the city between the Allegheny
and Monongahela rivers, about 23.5 square miles. I completed this
region on 18 November 2008. Pac Tom Level II is the remainder of the
city, another 32.5 square miles, and still in progress.